


The Table Is Set

by rhodrymavelyne



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:48:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26863156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne
Summary: Time for dinner for Hannibal with two of the people most precious to him. One of them is being served in more ways than one.
Relationships: Alana Bloom/Hannibal Lecter, Alana Bloom/Will Graham, Bedelia Du Maurier/Hannibal Lecter, Miriam Lass/Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Molly Graham





	The Table Is Set

**Author's Note:**

> This is an expansion on the final scene in Hannibal of Bedelia sitting at the dinner table. I don’t own Hannibal but for months it has owned me.

He stepped out of what could be our bower or his prison with his usual slow grace, examining everything. 

I watched him feeling the usual hungry love, the possessive passion. He was bound to me now by our shared kill, something he himself was acutely aware of. 

This was why he’d tried to destroy us both with a theatricality I could only applaud if not condone. He’d tried to escape, the ultimate escape. 

I’d anticipated him and caught him. Now the next move was his, although I had a little surprise for Will Graham. Our journey was not finished. 

The table was set and Bedelia looked lovely, even if she was missing a leg. She gazed at me with teary eyes, fixing them upon Will. “Welcome to the other side of the veil.”

Will froze at the sight of her. Did he see the knife in her hand?

“See how generous I can be, Will?” I placed my hands on his shoulders. “We are eating my wife, not yours. Not Alana either.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed by that?” he whispered, closing his eyes. “I’m no longer certain if I’m Bluebeard’s last wife.”

Bedelia understood the reference, judging by her strained laugh. Clearly she and Will had been seeing each other behind my back. 

“There’s no point in that, Bedelia.” I softened my voice, gave her a tender look of approval. How tastefully elegant she was, even missing a limb. “We are going to eat part of you. Whether or not you join us is up to you.”

“Us?” Bedelia murmured, glancing at Will.

Will turned slightly to gaze at me with liquid green eyes and trembling lips. “And why would I be part of this ‘we’?” There was no revulsion in his voice, only pain. After all he’d joined me at the table before. He’d even provided the meat, even if he’d lied about the source. 

“Because this is the price of your family’s safety. Join me in this meal and I’ll never try to harm Molly or Walter again. Ever.” I allowed my fingers to stroke his neck, feeling the tension vibrating down it. “It’s not as if we’re going to kill Dr. Du Maurier. Her leg has already been cooked.”

“And it would be a shame to waste me,” Bedelia uttered with a strained smile. 

“And you always keep your promises.” Will darted his eyes from my lips to my fingers. Perhaps he was thinking of Alana. Poor Will. He’d always been sentimental about people he couldn’t save. 

“Drop the knife, Bedelia, please.” I nodded at my former therapist. “Don’t make me waste what I long to savor.”

“I never knew you planned to share me.” She stopped trembling, allowing her eyes to harden. She put down the knife. Somehow she seemed far more dangerous without it. She’d laid down the blade but she still had her tongue. She was more skilled with the latter. “I suppose it is appropriate that you share your wife with your husband.” 

“You shouldn’t believe everything Freddie Lounds writes.” I released Will’s shoulders and went to the table. I pulled out a chair for him. “Will is still married, no matter how pointless I…or he…may now find that bond.”

“I dount that will stop you from knowing him in the biblical sense or he you.” She cocked her head in Will’s direction. “How does it feel to win?”

“I didn’t win.” Will abruptly sat down in the offered chair. “I was beaten. Utterly.”

“Now that’s not true.” I began to carve up the roast leg. “You defeated the Great Red Dragon. We defeated him together and we both consumed him.”

“Not literally.” Will drew a shuddering breath, offered me a tight smile on the verge of tears. He wouldn’t look at Bedelia. “I’m surprised we’re not eating him.” 

“We had to leave something for Jack.” I placed some meat on Bedelia’s plate, giving Will a sideways glance. “He sacrificed a lot for the Great Red Dragon.”

“Not a lot. Just me.” Will gazed down at his hands, his plate. 

“Jack Crawford should know better by now.” Bedelia studied the roast which had once been part of herself. “We all should have.”

“Why didn’t you run?” Will lifted his head to look directly in Bedelia’s eyes. His own were filled with entreaty. “I warned you he was coming. Why didn’t you run?”

“Oh, Will. Does anyone ever listen to your warnings?” I began carving him a healthy slice of leg. “Especially when you yourself never heed them?”

“To run the way your Dr. Alana Bloom ran?” Bedelia leaned over her plate, darting her attention from Will to myself. It was uncertain which of us she spoke to. “I doubt she’ll get far.”

“I was afraid she wouldn’t.” Will returned his attention to his plate now filled with meat. “The moment I learned you killed Beverly Katz, I feared she wouldn’t.”

“I know.” I gentled my voice as much as I could. “I wouldn’t have killed Alana, Will. Not while you were in prison.”  
Will lifted his head to study my eyes, lips, dropping his attention to focus on my hands. “Are you saying you cared about her? Truly cared?”

“I always have. I still do.” I sliced myself a piece of leg, arranging with especial tenderness on my plate. This was Bedelia, after all. 

“He never intended to take Dr. Alana Bloom’s life. Not by himself.” Bedelia allowed herself a small smile while watching my hands. “He wanted to share her with you.”

What little color was in Will’s face drained away. 

“Really, Bedelia,” I chastened. “We’re trying to have a pleasant evening.” 

“For myself it’s a pleasant evening of being eaten.” Bedelia shook her head and picked up her fork. “Do you do this often, Hannibal? Feed a victim herself as you dine together.”

“Last time it was a him. Dr. Abel Gideon.” I shrugged and sat down with my plate. “Those were special circumstances.”

“That’s what happened to him,” Will whispered. He still hadn’t picked up his fork. “I knew you killed him. I just didn’t know how.”

“Not until Frederick found his remains at his home.” I took a bite. A bit more astringent and citrusy than I’d hoped. Poor Bedelia. I’d tried to put her to sleep so she’d lose the leg in as painless a fashion as Miriam Lass had lost her arm. Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier had striven to convince everyone she’d suffered a similar fate to Jack Crawford’s bright-eyed young trainee. Now she had. “There is something elegant about parallel fates.”

“Elegant.” Will stared at the leg, almost mesmerized by it. “To you, this is elegance.”

“You haven’t had enough elegance in your life, Will.” I took another bite. “I’m going to introduce you to it, bit by bit.”

“Bit by bit.” It wasn’t Will but Bedelia who answered. She cut a morsel of meat free from the slab on her plate, lifting it to her lips. “How much can you take in, bit by bit?”

She opened her mouth, popped the meat in, and began to chew, never taking her eyes off Will. 

Will turned his fixated gaze toward her before returning his attention to his plate. He picked up his knife and fork. He began to cut himself a piece with a hypnotic slowness. 

“Bit by bit,” he echoed before lifting the fork to his own lips. He slipped a tiny morsel of Bedelia inside his mouth and began to chew. He never took his eyes off her. 

Curious the silent communication between my brides, if they could be called that. Who knew what they were silently scheming. Ah, well, I’d find out soon enough. 

At least they were eating.


End file.
